We’re digging RPGs

Misspent Youth is a game, by me, that’s coming out at Gen Con 2008 in ashcan form. Here are the images from the cover, with the overall design concept by Joshua AC Newman, the art by Jennifer Rodgers, and execution by me (with frequent suggestions by Joshua et al.). You can click on the images for full-sized images so you can read the text.

Joshua AC Newman said, of my layout for Misspent Youth, “I’m really happy with it.” This is not all he said. There is some work to be done. But I’ve got this giddy, junior-high, “so-and-so said she likes you” thing going on right now.

At Joshua AC Newman‘s suggestion, I checked with Publishers’ Graphics on when they’d need to have my PDFs by to have my books to me by August 7. This is going to make my timetable to get the books by Gen Con much tighter. I really need to kick my own ass to get shit done on time now. Shame on me.

I’m grateful to Joshua for thinking to make me ask this question. If the books are at Gen Con, it’s his “fault.”

Up to June 15: Me editing text furiously, playing around with InDesign.
June 15: Jenn delivers art sketches.
June 15: I start laying out the text with Jenn’s sketches.
June 15 – July 1: Jenn, Joshua, and I kibitz over the images.
June 25: First draft of layout to Joshua.
June 25 – July 1: We kibitz over layout.
July 1: Final art from Jenn.
July 1 – July 9: Fiddle with layout, replace sketches with final art.
July 9: Send PDF to Publisher’s Graphics.
Between July 14 and July 16: Proof arrives. I review it. I somehow confer with Joshua over it.
Between July 15 and July 17: I OK the proof, printing begins
Between August 4 and August 7: The books arrive.

I should probably push the “fiddle with layout” date back a bit but I want to be pessimistic. If any of these pieces can happen earlier, that will be helpful. In any case, it’s a week of wiggle room between when I expect to be done and Gen Con. Not extremely comfy, but good enough.

So I was running the first-ever multi-session game of Misspent Youth this weekend, and I realized that while I can make the Tag* work, I have to work at it, and others probably aren’t going to want to. So out it goes.

This was tough for me to do. I kept thinking that there was a magical way I could phrase things to make it work,but in the end I came to realize that it just wasn’t going to happen.

In other news, Mickey ran the second-ever never-played-the-game-with-me session of Misspent Youth (she also ran the first) at Go Play Northwest. It sounds like it went mixed, but ok. I’m waiting on actual play, which Mickey says that she can probably provide soon.

* For those who don’t follow my game slavishly, the Tag is this thing in the game where you get it when you treat other characters like friends (rely on them, come to their aid, compliment them, etc.). When that happened, you were very lightly in charge in-character, and The Authority would direct its attacks at you.

Daniel Levine, a guy too awesome for words, has posted this incredible hack of Misspent Youth to do a Vampire game. It’s super-cool and quite exciting. You play neonates out to break the hold of The Beast on your city.

Witness, and envy the awesomeness of having someone do this kind of thing to your game.

So here is a spec request I made to Jennifer Rodgers for art for the back cover of Misspent Youth. We don’t have sketches done yet but I’m really excited about this so I figured I’d share it.

A gang of 3-5 kids, in silhouette (possibly pure black like something out of Sin City, possibly something with some surface to it that we can see, I don’t know). These kids are in a tight knot together, maybe some are riding skateboards or (better yet) hoverboards. Anyway they’re all clearly running from left to right away from something off-screen to the left. Maybe someone is shooting a slingshot backwards or something. I see an interesting tension between their bodies moving in one direction and their attention being in the other (even if they’re not facing in that direction, something about the set of the shoulders). I imagine a street sign of some kind slightly ahead of them and a grubby street. I’m figuring it would run along the middle edge or bottom of the page and take up all or almost all of the width of the page and about a quarter of the height of the page.

As you may know, I’ve been working with Jennifer Rodgers and Joshua AC Newman on the art and layout for Misspent Youth. I’m happy to say that I have today a preview image to share with you of what the cover for Misspent Youth will look like.

Mickey (aka Geek Girls Rule) was kind enough to run Misspent Youth ridiculously early for me, on last Friday night. She hit a brick wall trying to use the conflict system, for which I am sorry. I did some stupid things in the writing that didn’t make this clear or were downright confusion-additive. I’ve uploaded a new manuscript, this one in PDF form. All the changes have been in the conflict article entitled “Throwing Your Body Upon the Gears.”

I am also starting a mailing list for those interested in getting email updates about Misspent Youth (such as when it’s coming out in ashcan, when things change, maybe when I have art to show, etc.). If you’re interested, respond here with your address or write me at my gmail account, which is at rob dot bohl.

Meet the Miners

We are fledgling game designers, each working on a single new design in public (but really working on it in this group… but really working on it in public). The complete current drafts (or as complete as they stand) are in the Projects page. We also tell you what we’re about and how we do things around here on the Mission Statement page.

Master Mines Reservists
These are Master Mines members who have moved into the Publishing phase and are busy with that work or who are taking a break from designing or have bowed out for various reasons. However, these Reserve Miners remain close friends of the group. Reservists can be called in at any time to fight in case of an interstellar invasion by receiving the call: “Master Miners Mobilize!”